Her
by Laura Ashes
Summary: What if Lily had made the wrong decision and when she finally told James Potter she loved him it was too late. The story is never as it seems, sometimes pieces get lost.


House; Hufflepuff

Type; Short Story

Prompt; "If I could turn back time and undo what I've done…"

Word Count; 1,109

Stories aren't always told as they should be or in the order they actually happened. Sometimes people keep secrets, key detail of a story that then get lost, the remains of an alternate state, a different timeline. What if Lily held a secret that showed a different side of her, a hesitation that turned into a regret. A broken rule that she would always treasure and a second chance she would never forget.

Lily wiped at her tear stained face, hiccuping from crying too much, her breath catching in her chest. Her hunched body ached from being contorted for too long, knees bent underneath her awkwardly from where she'd fallen to the ground, distraught by the sight in front of her. She had been unable to comprehend the scene that had just played out before her eyes, the hooded figure, the dark fog, the shooting line of green light that seemed to move slowly towards its target. But she still didn't have time to scream.

With a shaky hand she reached over and closed James' deep hazel eyes, not wanting to look into the empty void that they had become and instead choosing to remember them full of their normal glint of joy and mischief. Every time he laughed or played a stupid prank, the way he would throw back his head in laughter when Lily would get ink on her face in a long study session. How he would then wipe it from her cheek or chin and make a stray comment on how she wouldn't be Lily Evans without stray ink or the smell of parchment.

She wanted to cry some more, to have more tears fall to try and wash away the sight in front of her but no more came. Lily placed a small kiss on his pale forehead and let her face drop next to his.

"I love you James Potter, I'm sorry I never said it before," She drew in a shaky breath, "i'm sorry I was so stubborn," her voice cracked and a dry sob broke through.

And finally it was in this moment that Lily gave up on her insistent stubbornness and it was official, Lily Evans had taken too long to realise that she was madly in love with James Potter.

In their seventh year they had both become Heads, they had worked together constantly and Lily had been dreading it. In her surprise James had shown up as a new person he had stopped the chase and decided he would just be James Potter and not 'Potter the arrogant toe-rag'. Lily had found that she quite liked just James and slowly they had become friends.

"I love you James-"

"Merlin Evans," Lily pushed herself up from leaning over James' lifeless form and turned to see Sirius walking back towards them. When it had happened he had turned to stone, gone rigid and set about doing what is needed, calling the order, informing the ministry. Lily had figured that through all the trauma Sirius has seen and been exposed too he simply had never been prepared to deal with this and didn't know how to process it.

"You really have great timing don't you! What in Godric's name do you think that's gonna help with now. He spent years Lily. Years he loved you he never stopped, he-"

"I know Sirius," her voice came out soft and calming clashing with Sirius' raging voice. His grief coming out through anger. "I know I'm too late. I've been scared and stubborn and stupid, I know but there's nothing more I can do."

Silence was shared between them and their eyes met, grief and sorrow and love passing between them in that brief second. Sirius slowly eased himself to Lily's side and the two encompassed each other, embracing themselves in silence, taking comfort from each others grieving.

"If I could turn back time and undo what I've done… what I didn't do,"

"Why don't we?" Sirius rocketed into an upright position his eyes bulging.

"What?"

In silence Sirius reached for the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a glinting, golden time turner he gently folded it into her hand. She stared at it with wet green eyes and looked up at Sirius in disbelief.

"How?"

"James and I stole it from Mcgonagall at the end seventh year," he sniffled, look at the deadpan, limp face of his best friend. Vigorously he shook his head, letting out a guffaw of disbelief. "We thought we might need it sometime," he whispered, barely audible to Lily's ears. "It may not save him but at least he would have gotten the one thing he has always wanted. You."

"How would we even do that? I'd need to talk to myself I suppose"

"When did you first start having proper feelings for him, go back and convince yourself to follow through on them. Lily he needs this please, go, now."

So she did, with a deep breath she stood wrapping the time turner around her neck and spun it again and again and again and again she knew exactly when she was going too. Christmas time 1977, three years previously. Lily had been a wreck, sat in the Heads study crying over yet another letter from her sister telling her how much of a freak she was and that she wasn't welcome home for the holidays as her fiancee Vernon was coming over.

This had been how James had found her that night curled up at her desk, a tear stained letter in one hand and a box or chocolate frogs in the other. He didn't say a thing to her, hadn't tried to make a joke or comfort her through words, he'd simply scooped her up and held her, let her cry and soother her, stroking her fiery red hair. He had made her feel calm, like nothing else mattered in those few moments of solitude in his arms.

Lily spent the whole week after their encounter fretting about what it meant, how being that intimate with James Potter was just wrong and by lunch time on the friday she sat herself down in the library, a book in hand and had come to the conclusion that she was simply being delusional and just needed to screw her head back on. She would focus on her studies and forget that it had ever happened. It had been that evening that the perfect Lily Evans broke the biggest rule she could and sat down across from herself in an attempt to right a wrong and give James Potter the one thing he had always wanted. Her.


End file.
